Beardown wrote:
I actually saw the show. He said he knew they were preparing for the end of the North era.
What? They offered him 800k? He didn't take the offer. If they were preparing for him leaving they wouldn't have offered him anything. That's what they should have done. Not offer him anything. Thank God Pappy turned it down. Pappy saved the Score from making another stupid decision.
I heard two things. One, they're making plans 18 months ago to get rid of him and feed that story to Feder. One-a, They won't confirm it. (One-b, of course they wouldn't -- what makes him expect they would?!?) Two, they give him an offer which may or may not be what he's actually worth, but he's gotta know that if he accepts it, its the last deal they'll offer him, and furthermore, there'll be enough "out" clauses in there that they can tee him off for another "Chinaman" comment.
Knowing that these guys aren't trustworthy (like "his guys" might be in his imagination,) he knows the next 'x' years at 800k will be miserable, and they'll micromanage/blow up his various on-air sins. Said "blow ups" will tarnish his rep amongst other potential hirers, making him less hirable after that 800k contract is over, and/or the exercise right to get rid of him.
I see his POV; I'm sympathetic to it. The money, truly, is not important. Not at that cost.
Now understand, I'm not a fan of the guy. I thought he was in severe decline on Monsters when he was telling people he knew more about being black than most black people. He certainly jumped the shark afterwards as a solo guy, and this morning thing has been a disaster.
But that doesn't mean I don't understand his POV. I'll even add: Mac has said that it's really station management's fault for not reigning him in, long ago. (Sort of like how Mac's been reigned in with increasingly worse punishment until he "got it.") Well, yeah, I agree with that up to a point. They allow an environment to be set up where whatever his idea of a good show goes, with very little checkpoints. Obviously, he wants that environment and/or protection to continue. He feels he has a RIGHT to expect that environment/protection to continue, because, after all, they provided it to him for the past 16 years. And looking at (1) above, he now knows he can't trust them to provide that, anymore.
So, no matter what, booking from there is probably the best thing for him. Doing something syndicated or web streaming is where he has to go. I look to where he did his friday show, and they do Hub's syndicated Pro Football Weekly and Baum's sportstalk show (among other genres.) Someone small like that would pay a bundle for a Pappy on the hope of his putting them on the map. He doesn't have to do nearly as well as with the Morning Show to do that. Of course, the fact that that wasn't a good show, and had buttloads of technical glitches (like hanging up on callers) didn't make that a trial run.